


Now He is the Prince of Darkness

by propergoffic



Series: A Sense Of Fatal Allegiance [3]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference (Vampirism), Alternate Universe - World of Darkness (Games) Setting, Angst, Betrayal, Blood Addiction, Blood Mages, Breakup, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Murder, Casual Sex, Confessions, Convoluted Turf War/Political Thriller Plot, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, HIV/AIDS, Haunting, Lesbian Vampires, Limited Character Perspective, Lovers to Friends, Mages, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Murder Mystery, Other, Past Character Death, Santa Monica Dream, Suicide Notes, The plot is happening over there somewhere, Too Many Characters In One Goddamn Scene, Vampire Politics, Vampire Sex, Vampires, World of Darkness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-01-23 13:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propergoffic/pseuds/propergoffic
Summary: It's October 2013. Night-time LA is on a knife edge, nine years' detente between vampire factions shattered with the Baron of Hollywood's death. Anarchs, Camarilla, and the pariah Giovanni clan wage a secret war, with their blood-bound pawns and lovers in the crossfire. As the storm rises, two girls from Arcadia Bay are torn apart, only to rise again...Directly follows 'Phony People, Come to Prey.'
Relationships: Damsel (Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines)/Chloe Price (Life Is Strange), Fledgling & Maximillian Strauss, Fledgling (Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines)/Jeanette Voerman, Mira Giovanni/Nadia Milliner, Original Giovanni Character/Nadia Milliner, Rachel Amber & Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Jeanette Voerman, Rachel Amber/Therese Voerman, Vandal Cleaver/Nadia Milliner
Series: A Sense Of Fatal Allegiance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1127387
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	1. i still need someone to tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vandal is out of the loop, and has a breach of the Masquerade next door. Chloe is out of fucks to give, and throws herself on the Anarchs' mercy. Nadia is out of line, and angling for a new master. Rachel is out of feelings, and has some questions for Therese.
> 
> (Blink and you'll miss it: cameo by @hezenvengeance's Dahlia.)

It’s cold. Colder than it has a right to be in a desert, in a city of three-point-eight million bleeding, bitter souls. The wind’s turned to the north, and it whistles down the narrow alley between the Asylum and the Boulevard, between the Medical Center’s back door and a row of payphones barely touched for years, and it prises its way between Vandal’s scrubs and skin and thrift-store overcoat. It ruffles his hair and tickles his spine and stirs the lining of his twitching nose with something other than the usual where-gasoline-comes-to-die.

Vandal turns his head like a dog, following the scent, snuff-snuff-snuffing; his lips stop-motion their way through expressions, arriving at up and down and twisted without seeming to move between them.

It’s been eleven long and loyal years for Vandal Cleaver Esquire, devoted slave to the biggest bitch in Santa Monica, and in all that time he’s learned a lot about how to go unnoticed, how to set a tail, how to take his prey. Yes sir, all those instincts are ticking along just nicely now, and what they’re telling Vandal is this: shit has gotten real. It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. One day everything you’ve done is going to catch up with you. And you’d better be dead by the time it does.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, and shambles on down the alley, crosses the Boulevard, enters another narrow path that’ll take him home. His fingers close on something hard and square and familiar in his pocket. He’s taken to carrying the taser with him of nights. It’s not that he’s afraid — not more than is strictly sensible, anyway — it’s that he knows he’s going to have to take steps sooner or later.

The little witch girl has to go. It’s nothing personal. His bitch queen is… compromised, like this. Her rigour, her regimen; her hair out of place. The quiet unbeating heart of Vandal’s world has shuddered into life. It’s a threat to the position, his sleepy head insists. Hers as well. She can’t be vulnerable. She can’t be seen like this. She can’t become… dependent.

And deeper in his hindbrain something else writhes and flexes and whispers: _That’s your position. You’re the addict here. And now you’ve seen what that looks like on her. And that’s hot, isn’t it?_

Vandal’s loyalty is absolute. Of course it is. But… with that absolute loyalty comes a responsibility. The pawn protects the queen. And if she’s up there yearning and gnawing and tearing like he is, she’s not in control. And she needs to be in control, like he needs to be controlled.

And in that dark recess of his shrivelled soul, Vandal thinks: _Blackmail is such an ugly word._

But if this is what it takes for her to bring him over. If he can somehow face his goddess and insist on elevation. If he could maybe feel what she feels when she drinks deep of her little witch. Maybe that’s the angle. Sharing is caring, and Vandal cares for her so very much.

The thought that she’d rip him to shreds for that is not far behind. Better by far that it’s an accident. Better by far that little witches get what’s coming to them, too bad, so sad, and maybe he’ll bag up her blood and pass it off as another’s some time and play the long game, and he’ll drink a toast to Miss Milliner for showing him it can be done. Loyalty, yes, absolute loyalty, loyalty until death do us part and beyond. But that doesn’t mean mindlessness.

Maybe he’ll drink her. Cover his tracks for good.

And that’s when Vandal steps out onto Colorado and into the LAPD and he realises it’s already too late.

His mouth runs on autopilot, “what happened?” and “officer I live here” and “what do you mean ‘gas leak’?” tumbling out in succession, if neither quick nor smooth. The back of his brain is shuddering. And somewhere in the middle the rational part of him that can find an excuse for anything in front of its eyes or behind its instincts is working things out.

It’s already happened. 508 overlooks the street in this direction and it’s blown out. Glass everywhere. Fractures. Shards. Crunch-crunch-crunch underfoot; can’t be helped. Someone got to the Amber girl first; green light, or red? Is this his goddess’ divine hand at work, or one of the other devils?

Someone’s telling him to calm down as his eyes sweep this way and that. Seeking, seeking; he knows there’s another lick in town, and he knows a couple of Bertram Tung’s do-boys by sight. Neither’s anywhere to be seen. And while Vandal’s eyes are sharper than the human average, he’s not stupid enough to think he can see the man himself. Maybe he’s out there right now. Gloating. Rubbing his hideous little paws with glee. Vandal would never know.

He can see Trip, though, sat in the back seat of a police cruiser. No help there. Whether it’s the guns or the dope or nasty nosy questions about insurance, something’s caught up with him.

Vandal drags himself back to the officer. Can’t do much good arrested. Can he get his stuff? Yes, he’s got somewhere to stay, he just has to make a few calls. Queen Bitch has to know. And… so does Miss M. Her ticket out just got cancelled. And then he remembers to ask, like a concerned neighbour of course, nothing out of the ordinary, about what happened to his neighbours. Because someone — everyone in Vandal’s closed circle of intimates, most likely — will want to know.

* * *

It’s been rough.

What do you tell your landlord about every window in your shitbox apartment being blown out with no other fuckin’ damage to be seen? Gas explosion? Ass explosion. What do you tell your boss? My girl left me for the living dead and I can’t stay home ‘cause they know where I live and their dogsbody lives next door. What do you do about sleeping in the back of your truck on the lot, catching a few hours in between the sirens and Thunder chasing drunk assholes away from the gate?

It’s not the running away, getting the hell over the alley wall before Mrs. K downstairs or Trip in the shop have figured out what’s happening. It’s not the lying to everyone that hurts. Chloe’s good at that. It’s the not telling the truth to anyone. Not even knowing it herself. The silence is the real killer.

She called Rachel fourteen times, finally left her a message that’s half swearing and half crying and half begging to know what she did and half praying Rachel’s safe. And yeah, that’s four halves in one message. It’s a lot. Whole lot of feelings.

She can’t live with not knowing. She can’t sleep. She can’t get through the day without breaking up over the first dumb shit thing that doesn’t go her way. She’s draining out of herself, running through her own fingers as she pulls herself apart with _what happens next_ and _how do I fix this_ and _why me, why us, why does it never stop, why, why, why…_

So much is missing. There’s always been a hole in her soul and now the whole goddamn floor’s fallen out and she’s walking on dust and debris, daring herself to fall. And the strength she had that night, to stand up to Rachel, to push through the delusions Therese put in her head and almost reach her? That’s all gone. But she knows where to get more. And she knows where to get answers. And Chloe’s too tired and too sick and too beat-down to be angry at anyone but herself. And that, all told, all things added up and duly considered, is why she’s here again.

Skid Row. A side street that winds under the I-10, between warehouses and mission houses and fuck-all-knows-what-else and ends here, with two low floors and one white sign and a steel door and barred windows. This isn’t a bar. It’s a bunker. And knowing that doesn’t make it any easier, ‘cause now Chloe’s back here she’s not sure she wants to be.

> Every bullet wounds. The Last Round kills.

The words come back to her unbidden, Vandal’s leering axe-killer whine echoing round the back of her aching, empty head. Had he known? Some-fuckin’ how, had he known it would all come to this? With the way life was going right now, the creepy is-he-not-a-stalker next door being able to see the future would be just dandy.

What choice is there, though?

So she crosses the street, making a fist in her pocket, as the steel shrieks and the door opens. There’s an unlovely vibe in the place; that’s obvious from the moment the door opens. The bouncer — the big black guy radiating the same damage as David who’s given her shit every single one of the ten seconds they’ve seen each other — looks her up and down just like the first night and rolls his eyes. He whistles, he yells Damsel’s name, and then he deigns to let her past, ushering her inside. Chloe catches a muttered “ghouls, man” that trails off into something inaudible, and she’s just about to flip him out when Damsel surfaces from out back, a “what, dammit?” dying on her lips as she clocks Chloe, and then before Chloe can blink she’s locked in a bone-crunching hug and staying upright is taking everything she has.

“God, I’m sorry,” is what Damsel says when she finally lets go and steers Chloe into a booth. “Everything got away from me and I just — these dorks make me wanna lose it at the best of times and last night was not the best of times and by the time we’d all stopped fucking screaming you were gone. I was gonna come find you, I swear…”

Chloe wipes her nose on her sleeve. “’S fine. If you’d been there things’d prolly be a lot worse,” and then it comes out of her, Rachel and Therese and everything, “just like you said. It’s like — she knew. I almost got through to her. And then she talked herself out of it again right in front of me. And I tried to stop her, and — God, this is the part where I’d say I’m not sure you’re gonna believe me, but that’s your line, right?”

“Chloe. You’re talking to the walking dead here. There’s a lot of shit I have to believe if I wanna get through the night, so just tell me.”

“Rachel — does things, sometimes. When she’s super mad. Like — she screams at shit and it breaks. The first day I knew her she started a forest fire and whipped it up ‘till half the state burned down, and this time she blew out every window in our apartment. And now I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do or who I’ve gotta explain this to or how I’m gonna explain it or… shit, anything. I hid out all day and then I came back here because…” Chloe throws up her hands, as if to say _what else was I supposed to do?_

“That’s… a lot.” Damsel rubs the back of her neck, looks around like she’s lost something. “You came to the right place, though. Not as if the LAPD or whoever can do jack about this. I don’t know who to — crap!” Whatever clockwork runs in her head skips a gear, and she locks her eyes onto Chloe’s again. “OK. I’ve gotta make time for you, somehow. But we’ve got a major shitshow about to go down here. I don’t wanna dump our garbage on you right now, but you and Rachel are part of it and maybe that means you should know what we know. Which, to be honest, is a whole lotta not enough.”

“You’re really doing this?” says the bouncer guy, who’s watching them in between watching the street. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t get involved with — ”

“Hey, Skelter,” says Damsel, baring her teeth in something that has nothing at all in common with a smile. “Shut up. Someone gets caught up in our bullshit, we do right by them. Because we are not assholes. But we don’t let our bullshit take over their whole lives, ‘cause if we did that, we’d still be assholes.”

“You ever notice how there’s no middle ground there?” Skelter doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t wig out like Damsel would and Chloe would be tempted to. “What you gotta understand,” he goes on, nodding to Chloe, “is that ‘our bullshit’ takes over your whole life whether you want it to or not, and every single one of us is ‘an asshole’ whether we try to be or not, and either way you end up dead. Best you can hope for is you’re still walkin’ and talkin’ afterwards. That’s the facts.”

Chloe looks up at him, dead-eyed and dog-tired. “There an option where I don’t get stuck with you?” He laughs at that, and so does Damsel, who slams her hand down on the table to cut herself off.

“Sure. Walk out that door and wait for the other side to catch up with you. Best case scenario is they put you in the ground to keep their secrets buried. But if you wanna get through this…” Skelter grins, and just like with Damsel, those four sharp points are suddenly the centre of the world for Chloe. “Here we are.”

Damsel reaches out, takes Chloe’s cheek in her palm and — not ungently, but irresistibly — turns her head away. Her other hand’s wrapped around both of Chloe’s, nesting over them. “This guy,” she explains, with a forced upward curve in her voice, “is the most honest bastard ever to walk God’s earth, but he doesn’t know when to shut up and he doesn’t know everything, even if he acts like it. You’re here, so we’ve got your back. Whatever that turns out to mean. OK?”

“What does it mean, Damsel?” Chloe sighs. “I’m out of fucks to give here. I don’t need promises. I need help.”

“I know. Here’s the thing: we, as in us,” and Damsel waves a hand to indicate the grimy interior of the Last Round and Skelter and everything in the room that isn’t Chloe, “are kinda screwed ourselves right now. Isaac being out of the picture cuts us off. Doesn’t mean we can’t help, but it means — ah, shit, basically it means you’re gonna have to stick with me for now, and hope we both get through this. I wish it wasn’t like this, I wish I could put you and Rachel front and centre, but we could be fighting for our lives this time tomorrow night.”

It sounds like she’s going to say more, and Chloe’s about to say she’s got fuck-all left to fight for, but her hands are under Damsel’s and they’re so cold but at least they’re there and it’s not Chloe against the world by herself, and just when she’s deciding to say that, Skelter straightens up and whistles, short and sharp.

“Heads up. He’s back.”

Chloe follows Damsel’s gaze to the door. The guy who walks in walks like he owns the place. He’s not tall, but he’s big — a brawler’s build, callouses on his hands and dusters on his knuckles and a fat bastard of a handgun shoved in his belt. He probably had a tan when he was alive, and he’s still a darker shade of pale than Damsel, but there’s something in the set of his eyes and the way he moves that says they’re the same even though they look nothing at all alike. Skelter steps back to let him in, and the posse coming after him. Pale girl with big, big hair and a short skirt who moves like a dancer and stares like a drunk. Wiry guy, Latino like the brawler, with thin hair and an all-round drab aesthetic. Biker chick zipped up tight in leathers with a gun case in her arms. A couple of others are heading down the back stairs, Chloe realises, but all the eyes in the room are on the obvious leader.

“All quiet?” someone from upstairs asks, and the brawler nods.

“For now.” His followers start to scatter, drifting into unoccupied booths or taking up seats at the bar; the biker makes her way upstairs. Only the girl with the big hair seems to linger, hanging unfocused on his every word; he murmurs something in her ear and she frowns, then nods. “Don’t be long,” she says — British accent, clear and sharp and a little out of place, and she drifts toward the back door.

“She OK?” Damsel asks.

“As OK as ever. Still freaked out about Isaac. She’s been jumping at shadows all night.” He sits down, and gives Chloe an appraising glance that starts with her hands, trailing after Damsel’s. “You…” he says, one finger tapping the empty air, and then he nods. “Yeah. We need to talk about you. I’m Nines.”

“Chloe. Are you… God, this is fuckin’ stupid. I can’t sit here and say ‘head vampire’ with a straight face.”

“No. I’m head of exactly jack, no matter what Damsel’s told you. First among equals if you’ve gotta push it, which means I’ve walked away from fights a lot of other people haven’t. And you’ve answered my next question already, which is ‘how much do you know and can I just send your ass home?’”

“She’s got nowhere else to go, Nines.” Damsel keeps her hand on Chloe’s while she’s talking. “I met her in Santa Monica. That fucking power dresser Therese has picked up her girlfriend and wrecked her whole life: I think she’s mixed up in whatever happened to Isaac, on the edges of it at least, and her girl’s got something else going on. Powers. Not ours. You know anything about anyone who can break shit by screaming at it?”

“Besides you? No. I heard a few rumours way back, but it’s all Kindred shit. I know enough to know there’s a lot I don’t know.” Nines’ eyes flick across to Chloe; the rest of him doesn’t move a muscle, and that’s a lot of muscle to not move. “I can ask around. I guess Damsel’s told you this isn’t exactly our finest hour.”

“I got the message.” That gaze is a lot to handle. Predatory. A little hostile. Weirdly powerful. “I can fuck off and die if you’re busy, OK?”

The eyes narrow, and then Nines laughs; with her, not at her, short and sharp and light. Laughing like he means it. “Funny. Really. I can see why Damsel likes you. But don’t try it again. Someone will take you up on the offer, and we’ve lost enough people we didn’t have to.” He straightens up. “Everyone here knows what it’s like to lose everything: that’s how we end up here in the first place. We’re not the good guys, but… we could be a lot worse. Damsel’s good people. I’d trust her with my life. So should you. Sorry this is such a shitty introduction, but I’ve got six different places to be.”

“Which one’s first?” says Damsel.

“I’ve got to hit Hollywood. I know what VV said, but we can’t let the Cam walk in there and take over, and without Isaac to hold the fort they will. I’m not letting Regency’s hit girl take the lead on this, and we’ve got to reclaim what we can of Isaac’s assets — keep the pipeline open. It…” Nines frowns, makes a face like he’s bitten something sour, and forces his next words through his teeth. “It may be time we started taking that Giovanni wannabe seriously.”

* * *

The mind goes to strange places at times like these. Nadia’s standing between Mira and Santino, nearest the door, keeping quiet, and safe, and her distance, and a tight grip on the instinct to rush to Mira’s defence. After all: this is what she wanted. And what she’s reaching back into the past for, as a distraction or a lifeline, is a song she heard seven years ago, in the hallway just past the door at her back.

> “Once there came a storm in the form of a girl,  
It blew to pieces my snug little world,  
And sometimes I swear I can still hear it howl,  
Down through the wreckage and the ruins…”

She remembers pale hands wandering up and down the keys, and a voice — soft, affected NorCal that’s a little high for the tune. In Bruno’s word of harsh classical monochrome, the pianist was a splash of something else, of old leather and blue jeans, a faded tan and beads around his neck.

Santino. He’d not been there for the fateful Halloween when everything went so very right and so very very wrong, and Nadia’s always been grateful for whatever logistic or cosmic quirk was behind that. He’d appeared on her radar two years later, when she’d relocated and graduated and the choke chain had been loosened a little after two years with no fresh failures on her part. The Blood had held her tight to Mira, even though she knew perfectly well Mira wouldn’t be the one to bring her over; her thwarted ambition, of course, wanted it to be Luciana, with all her secrets wrapped around her tighter than her furs; but if it turned out to be the pretty rock and roll boy, Nadia wouldn’t complain. Not that she’s thought about it. Not that she didn’t wish she had the balls, on that first night, to walk up behind him, hold him close against her, slip a hand down that always-open shirt and feel how cold he must be. It’s what Mira would have done, she knows, and it’s what she’d do now, she tells herself. But she knows in the pit of her soul that she’s lying.

But right now, she just wants to hide inside him. Burrow into his coat and never come out. The smile flickers and dies on her face. She’s read the diaries, listened to the stories, she knows the rules. The Giovanni survive because they do not interfere. They supply, they suggest, but they never take direct action in the intrigues of the other clans. It’s the Promise. It’s the price they paid long ago. And what Mira’s done — however subtle, however accidental — was something she did. Personally. She acted, and Isaac Abrams reacted, and now he’s dead. And if anybody ever knows — what happens? Will they throw Mira to the wolves? The Blood’s tugging on her heart. Where Mira goes, she follows. Especially since it’s her fault. It’s no more than she deserves.

It’s hard to hide her fists in this stupid Bruno-bait dress. She shouldn’t make them anyway. Shouldn’t show anything. To anyone. Shouldn’t hide, though. Shouldn’t just go back to her room and lock herself in until Mira calls for her. Hiding says you have something to hide, and Riccardo’s watching. He looks at Nadia like he’s weighing her up — deciding whether she’s worth more to the _familia_ alive or dead, doing her best or between his teeth. At least she’s not his. Mira merely hates her. Riccardo, she suspects, would chew her up and spit her out just to know what she tasted like.

And they’re in her house — Bruno’s house. Nothing’s hers.

It’s been nine years since she was safe, anywhere at all. That thought skids across the surface of her mind; she can’t let it snag on _what does that even mean? What did ‘safe’ feel like?_

Bruno’s tirade is winding down; his palms are open in front of Mira’s face, and he’s pressing her for answers: “What would you have me do, Mira? You say you’re sorry; what good is that to me?”

There’s an ugly chuckle from across the room. Nadia drags herself back into the present, quick as quick can be, because there’s nothing to make you value your possessions like the thought of losing them and Mira’s bound to be desperate for every asset she thinks she can count on right now.

“I don’t know, _zio_. I tried something, it worked too well… can’t we just wait this out? It’s not as if I paid someone to shoot him down in the street. What’s there to prove?”

“The Regency struggles to keep the peace in Los Angeles. They are looking for a reason to hound us out of what they see as their domain — to fight on one front. A dead Baron gives them all the reason they could ever need. They’ll probably tell Rodriguez they’re doing him a favour — extending the justice he prizes so highly — and that puts them at our door. They remember our past transgressions. And who even knows what their witchcraft can discover?”

Nadia could scream, at that word. He’s on to her. He knows. She could certainly shiver; but what if he doesn’t? She can’t do any of those things at all. But she can rest a hand on Santino’s shoulder, stand on the threshold of their world without being so crass as to step in.

His head tilts, rests on her knuckles.

_God, say something,_ she prays inside her head, _because this is so much harder than I realised._

Something in that urgency transmits through her grip, maybe, because Santino straightens a little.

“You know… there is a way we can spin this.”

Eyes flash across the room, to and fro; Riccardo’s glare, Luciana and Bruno both quirking their eyebrows, Mira gawking like Santino’s pulled a gun. Every eye’s on him, and even now Nadia can’t quite bring herself to punch the air. Just in case.

“Do tell,” says Bruno, finally.

“It’s not exactly safe. But, uh. All this shit about the Promise only matters if we have to deal with the Camarilla. It didn’t matter until they rolled back into town. So, what if we double down? I don’t mean go public. I mean, we see to it the Free State rises again.” He holds up a hand, suddenly emboldened, even as Bruno’s eyes widen and Riccardo starts to laugh. “Think about it. All our problems come back to having to deal with them. And I get around. I hear things. They’re rolling back all over the US. They took New York, sure, but everywhere else…”

Bruno rests his elbows on the desk, steeples his fingers, gives Santino his old-headmaster look. “The Promise isn’t merely about protecting us. It grants us the freedom to pursue our real agenda, without being up to our ankles in — ”

“Sectarian bullshit. I know. But my job, the thing y’all made me to do, is keep that from your door. And now it’s here, you’re gonna have to let me do it.”

Bruno and Riccardo’s eyes meet, and over Santino’s shoulder, Nadia sees them both nod.

“Don’t let me down.”

* * *

LA traffic gives Rachel time to dry her eyes, tucked safely into the back of the cab she thanks God she had the foresight to book. Time for the anger and the regret to trickle out of her, as she stares out the window at the deep dark Pacific and lets her mind push itself back and forth, back and forth, confusion ebbing and flowing until she can admit that she needs to know, one way or the other, and be still. Once they’re off the highway the climb goes faster, looping around on the very edge of Santa Monica, climbing the Palisades into more and more congealed money and power until, at last, Rachel steps out of the cab and looks down on the sleeping city and up at all the grandeur of the Ocean View Hotel. It’s fake as hell, of course; a heavy wedding cake of a building on the cliffs, probably younger than Rachel and all glamoured up to look a hundred years old. But then: nothing feels real right now. All her feelings have washed away like sand, baring what’s underneath. A knowledge. Here is where she needs to be, now.

She tries to check in, but gets as far as giving her name when it’s all ah-yes-you’re-expected from the desk clerk and she’s bellhopped up to the very top of the building. It’s a dream come true, all right, part of the life Rachel always planned on living, and she drifts through it like she’s dreaming. Nothing is really real until she’s through the door, walking down a white corridor into the penthouse suite, following an elegant piano refrain through unused rooms that could seat a score of people, past paintings that carefully mean nothing but what they cost, and then — here, in a smaller room, dark wood and leather, desk and piano and high windows, is Therese Voerman at last, and Rachel’s reality centres itself around her, settling into her orbit like she’s always been there.

It’s not romantic, at all. It’s sleek and businesslike and safe. Part of Rachel wants to be standing on the deck, in Therese’s arms — on a clear night she’d be able to see Playa Del Rey from up here, cheap allusions be damned — but that’s not Therese’s style, so it’s not going to be hers. This isn’t a music video and it isn’t Hollywood. It’s Santa Monica, and it’s real.

Therese doesn’t stand up, but she motions Rachel to the sofa at right-angles to her armchair and Rachel drops her bags at last and curls up within arm’s reach.

“I’m glad to see you,” says Therese. “I almost questioned letting you out of my sight. The investigation’s already begun. Did you have any trouble?”

“Not as such. It’s just,” says Rachel, and hesitates, the words hanging in the air and seeming even more absurd now they’re together again. To force them out at all takes a lot out of her — she has to shut her eyes and remember Chloe’s hands locked tight around her wrists, Chloe’s voice pleading with her through the dead weight of certainty that here was where she did not need to be. It was hours ago and in another lifetime; it happened for real and it’s dissolving into haze like she’s just woken up. “Chloe tried to stop me. I tried — I said if I was in danger she was too, said she should come up here with us — and she said no, and then she started talking about vampires.”

What’s Rachel expecting here? _Vampires? Of all the…_ would be good; a reassurance that the world is as she expects it to be. _Did she now_ would be telling. Therese doesn’t give anything away. She purses her lips, hums under her breath, and cocks her head as if she’s listening to something — as if someone else is standing next to her, whispering into her ear.

“What did she say?”

“That she’d met one, who either beat her up or made out with her. Maybe both. And she tried to convince me that you were one too. Which is insane, of course,” and the of course is Rachel’s best shot at an impression, said in the offhand this-is-the-way-it-is pitch and tone Therese would say it in, without actually trying to sound like her, “but some of the things she said… I don’t know. I could see how, if someone put the idea in her head, there’d be evidence.”

“Which rather begs the question — why come here at all?”

“You said we were in danger. You said I’d be safer with you. You said you need me. I believe you.” Rachel meant it to sound offhand, but the words tumble out of her faster than she planned, more earnest than she expected. She scrambles, like the ground’s tilting underneath her, struggling for equilibrium under Therese’s quiet, curious gaze. “Nothing about this changes that.”

Therese cocks her head again, her gaze flickering to the mirror behind the sofa and back to Rachel. Her lips part silently, shimmer together, and then she says: “I would have told you. I would have preferred to do it outside a moment of crisis. It was never going to be easy, in any case, but — you’re an intelligent girl. You would have worked it out by yourself eventually. Secrecy is a hard habit to break.”

Therese’s knuckles are always white, but they’re whiter still now, curved close against the leather of her chair. They’d be dug in, Rachel suspects, if Therese wasn’t clearly making a mighty effort to keep them otherwise. _She’s afraid. She’s actually afraid._ And once Rachel sees that, her heart swells. It’s a rush of half-formed feelings, like she’s Pandora and all the troubles of the world are flowing through her arms. She leans forward, offers her own hands to Therese, and she can’t figure out who the gesture’s meant to comfort any more.

“It’s… not the hardest thing in the world to hear. Somehow. Does that make sense? Like I said — it fits. And — things happen, sometimes, around me. I’m not about to run out of here screaming because I’ve had my worldview challenged. But it’s a lot to believe.”

“I understand. I’m a rational woman; I like to think you are too. I struggled to believe it myself. I didn’t have a century of popular culture telling me what was the stuff of fiction, either.” Therese takes Rachel’s hand, and dear God, as their fingers touch Rachel can feel the heat leaking out of them. And then, in tones soft but stern, matter-of-fact and mind-over-matter, Therese says: “When I was a girl, there wasn’t a hotel up here, or even a highway. The railroad ran straight out along the Mile Long Pier, carrying passengers in the daytime, lumber from the wharf at night, building Santa Monica day by day, and it was all shut down a hundred years ago. The Asylum was a music hall, then a picture house, then not much of anything after the earthquake. I bought it out later that year, and that was the year you were born.”

“You — you could have looked all that up. I don’t know why you would, but…”

Therese’s eyes flicker, shut and open, open and shut; she brings her hand to her glasses, sets them down. Rachel leans into her, straining her eyes in the night-time light, and sure enough, she’s crying. Crying in the ugly way of the chronically repressed, trying to choke it back, fighting it every step of the way. Crying tears that are too dark against the stark white of her face; thick and slow and red.

“Could you believe me now?” she says, in a small hollowed-out voice, quieter than she’s ever been before. “Or would you have me bare my teeth again? I couldn’t incapacitate us both, at a time like this…”

Rachel’s hand finds its way to Therese’s face, by instinct and curiosity and, OK, desire, and by a memory carried in on the tide; the tips of her fingers graze Therese’s cheek, and grace her own lips; and before the clock’s ticked twice she’s kissing the tear-trails away, her hands in Therese’s hair, worrying at the few loose strands down the back of her neck; and the_ us both_ and the _again_ that were on the tip of her tongue are washed down and swallowed in a rush of blood to the heart.


	2. he holds old friends in high esteem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadia tells Santino everything, because it's about time she told someone; Rachel and Jeanette have another moment; Chloe and Damsel go looking for the nastiest dude in town; and Vandal, well, Vandal's just been found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This was written in November, when I had big plans to NaNoWriMo my way through the rest of this fic. As per with NaNoWriMo, I produced about five thousand words and then decided I'd had enough, actually. I'll learn, one day. Anyway, hope someone's still reading this!)

With a locked door behind her and an empty little suite in front of her, Nadia finally has the luxury of addressing a few immediate needs.

First, and reluctantly foremost, she pitches face down on the bed and buries her head in the pillows and lets herself cry and shake and shudder out all that she’d had to keep contained when she was surrounded by them. That wasn’t on the agenda when she stepped into what passes for privacy, but here it is, and there’s no arguing with the fear as it blossoms in her and pulses through her and pushes out anything else and leaves only a bone-deep weariness in its wake. There’s no fighting it any more, no future left to borrow from. She’d stood there, good and quiet as the grave, and she’d somehow gotten away with it. All she has to do now is keep the secret. Pray that Mira never asks herself what the hell she’d been thinking that night at Cavioletti’s. Pray that she never considers why she’d been high as a kite the night before.

Second, and far less reluctantly, when her eyes are empty and her arms are tired of clinging to the bedclothes, she peels off that goddamn dress and kicks her heels to the back of the closet, and she stands in a long hot shower until the knots in her shoulders finally untie a little way and the nerves between them slip off their hair-trigger. It takes a while, her forehead pressed against the tiles, steam rising all around her, but there comes a time, as ever, when she can look in the corners of the room and not feel watched and watchful and wired and wrong.

And third? Third is her, wrapped in the very best pale pink robe she bought with Bruno’s money last Christmas, picking up her phone with every intent of calling Vandal to celebrate and seeing four missed calls and one new message.

Third time pays for all.

[_”Hey, little miss; we’ve got a situation. Queen bitch’s teenage witch is gone. Blown away on the north wind. Nothing left of her but broken glass and ugly questions. I can’t even get in the building without the mortal Man on my back. I called in the crisis like you said; mistress in distress is off the radar, and she didn’t even tell me where she’s gone. I can make some guesses, but I have my standing orders. Gotta keep the people fed. Keep up the appearance of the everyday. Call in, or call me, but don’t make any sudden moves.”_]

Is she fucked? Is one shot, one mistake, going to be enough to get Mira gone and shake off her chains?

She plays and replays the message, trying to figure out how this got so big so soon; Regency on the warpath, the Promise on its last legs, and her secret weapon apparently vanished. What does Vandal even mean? Is he being metaphorical, or…

And that’s when someone knocks on her locked bedroom door, and she knows it’s not Mira because Mira never knocks, or ever comes to Nadia’s room; it’s always an imperious summons by phone or a note waiting for Nadia when her catnap between the days she has and the nights she sacrifices is over.

“Who is it?” she asks, because there’s a hierarchy here; sure, anyone with Giovanni in their name can kick her ass when they want, but being attached to Uncle Bruno’s baby girl means there will be consequences, and so she can afford to send the fully-human outer circle away if she can’t handle their shit, which she can’t.

“Can’t you guess?” says Santino.

She’s across the floor almost before he’s finished saying it, and he’s there in the doorway when she opens it, and before she can say anything his finger’s on her lips and he’s sidling inside. His hand meets hers on the handle, and they lock themselves in by silent accord. He’s not bothering with the Blush, not faking being properly alive; all the defences can afford to come down in here, and with the colour leeched out of his cheeks he goes from cute to — well, Nadia’s biting her lip trying not to think it, because this isn’t the time.

“Thank you,” she says, all dropped head and doe eyes, because it seems like the thing to do in the game she’s playing here, even as the rules seem to rewrite themselves around her every time she makes a move.

“Don’t say it yet,” he says, half his face growing half a smile. “I’ve talked a lot of big talk, but… I still don’t know exactly what I’m saving you from.”

“I… guess you already spoke to Mira?” They cross the room together, weaving a path between the couch and the bed; Nadia’s not sure, and it seems like neither is he. They’re hovering between spaces, between states, standing on the threshold of desire and ambition, thirst and conspiracy, and they’re only safe as long as they don’t step forward, or back.

“I was in the room while she spoke at me, if that’s what you mean.” He gives a chuckle; one chuckle, a flat and muted heh, and tilts his head to look down at her. A pale fingertip, calloused and lined and worn before it was frozen forever at the moment of Embrace, guides her chin up, runs back along her jaw. “But she’s not the one who reached out. You are. And that makes me think: you’re the one in real danger here.” Fingers, cradling the side of her skull; her eyes want to close, but Nadia forces herself to look into the mismatched gaze she’s facing into, one eye warm and dark and hazel, one cold and white and drifting in a sea of scars. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

It’s not a command. She’s tried to use the voice before, like Mira does, and it can’t do anything like this. It goes straight through memory to muscle; it can bid the body, but not the mind. Tell her to tell everything and she’ll just drool out nonsense; sound and fury.

It’s not the voice. But it feels like the voice.

“I… can’t. I can’t tell you everything. Blood won’t let me.” It’s rising in her throat, even now, bubbling and frothing; let her treason be sick on his boots, better that than false words.

His palm’s so close to her lips.

“We can do something about that, too,” he whispers, and the nail of one thumb scratches across the ball of the other — the mound of Venus — she turns in his palm, a short sharp gasp and she’s kissing the gouge in his flesh, tongue darting into the wound. It’s rich and it’s cold and it’s the only thing about him that’s alive and it’s pouring through her drop by drop; his free hand’s on her back and drawing them closer together; when she breaks away to breathe he traces down her throat, those fingertips following his blood down into her.

And later, when those fingers have coiled and curled and caressed their last, when the rush is faded and they’re lying together like they belong, she can finally let it all go.

* * *

Consciousness takes Rachel longer than it should. It’s the same foggy feeling she had the last time she woke up in Therese’s bed; the same slow climb through miles and miles of _this is fine, this is fine_, a self-soothing voice that sounds like her and isn’t her and is totally welcome.

This time, she’s alone. And this time it’s not Therese’s bed; it’s one of the doubles in her suite at the Ocean View, and it overlooks the ocean. And this time, as she slips out from the covers and over the rug and shrugs into the kind of perfect-soulless robe you only find in a hotel room, she remembers what just happened.

Clarity grows slowly. It’s not a shock. Rachel doesn’t pass out, freak out, or flip out, tempting as it might be.

_Chloe was telling the truth._

That does make her shake a little. Chloe. Seven foot of brave in a five-nine body. Totally honest. One hundred per cent on her side. And Rachel was so mad at her…

She doesn’t say she’s sorry out loud. This has got to be real. Those words have to come out as cut up and bloody as they feel in her head. She loves Therese, of course she does, she can taste Therese on her lips and in her soul, but she loved Chloe first and longer and Chloe’s had her back since minute one and this is no way to treat someone who loves you back at all.

_Call her right now, you asshole._

Obviously, Therese has to come first. They’re hiding out up here. On lockdown. And Chloe can’t — OK, that’s unfair, Chloe won’t — just sit on her hands and not intervene. She’ll want to help them, because that’s who she is and what she does. But wouldn’t she be good? In the field? And then, when all this is over, when they’re back on the streets of Santa Monica, they can patch this up and figure it out and conquer the world, just like they planned. Just like they were going to do. More or less.

_Where the hell is my phone?_

She’s been searching on autopilot; checking bedside tables and under pillows, opening drawers, even the bathroom because who knows where she’s been? Now the inner voice tugs harder for her attention and she realises none of her stuff’s in here. Her bags… are they still where she dropped them? Her phone? Her keys? And… she doesn’t remember undressing, either.

Rachel steps out into the suite proper — the sprawling dining room, the table for twenty, the ocean view for which the whole pile’s named — and between her and the ocean is a body the exact double of the one on her mind, give or take a little window dressing.

Jeanette has one hand coiled around a smartphone — impossible to tell what kind under the gaudy stickers and the kind of dangling crap that hasn’t been cool since Rachel was ten years old — and the other is crawling up and down the glass of the tall French doors, nails tink-tink-tinking their way to hell and back. That aside she’s in bra and briefs and while it’s a view to die for, Rachel drags her attention onto literally everything else.

Her phone isn’t on the table. But Therese’s is: slim, sleek, black and trimmed in chrome, buttons rather than a touchpad, somehow so very her. Maybe it’s the Imp of the Perverse or maybe something a lot smarter that wants to figure out how much shit she’s in, but Rachel creeps a little more quietly up to the table and she knows she has exactly one shot at this and she knows exactly which shot she’s going to take.

She doesn’t pick the phone up. But she does fire it up and tap in one-nine-nine-four, the year of the Northridge quake, the year Therese bought the Asylum, the year Rachel was born, and she hopes Therese was dropping a hint and doesn’t prefer her long-ago birthday or something as a PIN.

It works: and now she knows it works, Therese’s secrets are her secrets. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Therese, of course. Never that. But she can’t fight back if she doesn’t know what they’re up against, and she won’t be kept in the dark again.

Rachel locks the phone and straightens up, and this time she knocks the chair beside her, accidentally-on-purpose, and she half-yawns, half-yelps, when Jeanette spins and grins and flutters her fingertips in Rachel’s general direction.

“One second, baby girl,” Jeanette murmurs, winking at Rachel and striking a pose, one finger held up with ludicrous authority as she talks back to the phone. “I’m a busy little bee tonight, but sure, I’ll lead you to the hive. Or the honeypot. You’re just gonna have to take a chance on me. Your boy’s got a base at the old Sun Gasoline tower, and that’s the one he knows ain’t unknown no more. If you don’t find him there, sing your song at the beep. And if you’re gonna paint the town, red: get real and don’t do it without me, you hear?” She hangs up, sashays down a step or two and leans across the back of a chair opposite Rachel, legs and back at right-angles, lips pursing to kiss the empty air. “And now, Little Miss Delish, you have my undivided attention.”

“Good.” Rachel rolls her neck, mimes sleepiness, checks Jeanette’s curves with a flash of her own neckline. “Because I think you and I need to talk.”

* * *

This is what the Kindred do to you.

You cry yourself to sleep in a truck that doesn’t drive, you only even see your boss to steal breakfast from him while he chews you out, and you spend a day circling the drain, being drawn further and further down until you end up in a place like the Last Round, the dive at the end of the world. And then, just like that, the whirlwind reverses, and just like the guy who probably meant the best for you said, you’re swept up in all their bullshit and you’re drifting along after one of them.

But Chloe’s bobbing along in Damsel’s wake, close enough to hear, close enough to touch, almost close enough to taste, and it feels safer having Damsel between her and this godawful world, even if where they’re actually going is back to probe Chloe’s wounds, back to the Boulevard, back to fucking Santa Monica again. Easy to wish she’d never seen the place, never thought about ending up here, never gone out of Oregon in her life.

It’s been a lifetime of wishes, and Chloe doesn’t have the faith she used to have.

“So,” she says, because the silence is killing her and they’re crawling along Wilshire in a lurching, barely-mobile Chrysler Damsel claims she’s never seen before and can’t drive worth shit, “what the hell are we doing tonight, Brain?”

“Keeping you safer than you would be in a bar full of strung-out Kindred. And pulling the only thread we’ve got to pull on about this Isaac thing, which might just lead us back to figuring out where Therese is.” Damsel death-glares a delivery kid who roars by on a moped that probably weighs more than he does, and adds a final “asshole,” which might be for the kid or Therese or Chloe or anyone. “And where Rachel is.”

“Thanks,” says Chloe, huddling into the passenger seat and shifting her weight around the still-unfamiliar bulk of the gun in her belt. “For pretending it matters.”

“She’s part of this whole fuckup too, OK? She’s on the board. Even if you weren’t along for the ride, we’d still need to know how she fits in, what Therese wants with her. ‘Sides,” and they turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard, and Chloe chokes down the sick feeling that she’d swear to anyone else is Damsel’s driving and nothing else, “that stuff about the scream? That’s freaking me out. We’ve got a whole lot of unknowns right now. This guy we’re going to see? He knows it all.”

“What is he? A Knows-feratu?” It’s a shit joke, and it feels dead on her lips, but when Damsel looks at her and says “How the fuck d’you know that?” Chloe actually laughs.

“Seriously? There’s a bunch of you named after a black-and-white movie?”

“Not exactly. Clans get named by their enemies. Brujah’s just a Spanish word for ‘witch’, y’know that? ‘Nosferatu’ just means ‘leper’ in Transylvanian or something. But it stuck all right, and I bet there’s some cape out there who’s still pissed about that.” Damsel gives her a little ‘heh’ — then she’s grave as she ever is. “But. Something you oughta know going into this. Just looking at a Nosferatu can fuck you up. Not in a mind-whammy kind of way. They’re just ugly-ass sons of bitches, and because they’re ugly-ass sons of bitches, they live extremely off-grid. Empty houses, abandoned buildings, the damn sewers. Which fucks ‘em up in the head, if their own faces didn’t do that already. So, long story short, prepare to be grossed out.”

“Dee-lightful. Where do we find these lovely people?”

“Most of ‘em round here hang out under Hollywood Boulevard. The one we’re meeting? He’s their man on the ground in Santa Monica. We know a guy who knows a guy who’s got his number, which is the worst way we could possibly get this shit done. Takes a day to turn things around, but he must be rattled, ‘cause it only took a day this time.”

They roll to a halt, and Chloe realises what’s familiar about this side street, this turning. It’s not the way she usually approaches, but once they turned around the gas station on the corner she knew exactly where they were. The Brothers Salvage sign is right down the road.

* * *

It’s like she knew.

Vandal doesn’t have that much stuff to recover from the apartment, but he stuffs it in a plastic bag or two, hopping from foot to foot, while he’s connecting the calls that’ll make all this her problem again. But it’s like she knew he was getting notions; like the very thought of betrayal tugged the chain that binds him to her, even if it binds both ways; and she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t answer when he calls her from the apartment and she doesn’t answer when he calls her from the hotel and she doesn’t answer when he calls her in tears and hangs up before he can confess it all and beg her to speak to him so he can remember why he hates her.

She is becoming a tangled figure in his head. She’s blonde, and she’s brunette; she’s alabaster and she’s sandstone; she’s cold and untouchable, she’s warm and her heart’s beating and she could be right there in his arms if he didn’t want to lose his only friend. And she’s not the only one he needs to worry about. The others will be watching. Circling. And what’s a do-boy to do at a time like this?

With no answers to his questions and no solutions to his parlous and perilous state, Vandal does the only thing he can think of. Time to play safe. Business as usual. Safer behind the glass, fulfilling his function. He sticks to the main streets — no shortcuts, no alleys, no standing out in the crowd, holding his breath and biting his tongue as he’s jostled to and fro at sunset on Sunset, the red at his back streaking all the way up to Hollywood, flowing away from him and everything he knows and everywhere he can handle.

Things are moving, and only in motion does Vandal realise he wanted them to be still. Things are moving, out of his hands, out of the little world that’s been him and his for so long. He’s used to being — not the scariest thing on these streets, but insulated by indispensability and insignificance. The status quo needs him to stay tus quo, and this is a brave new world: is there room for such as him in it?

And because he’s feeling unprotected, Vandal looks both ways as he crosses the street and steps into the Medical Center through the front door, and smiles a desperate unfunny smile all the way down the main stairs, all the way through apologising to the day crew for being late — not his fault, his neighbours blew something up in their kitchen and the building had to be evacuated, no he’s not making it up, yeah it does suck to be him actually — and the smile only falls off his face for good when he steps into the booth and sees there’s already one of them there. Waiting for him. Watching him.

He doesn’t know this one, but he thinks he knows the type. Sunglasses in the dark because that makes him look mysterious. Timeless vintage jacket-and-jeans because timeless is easier than on-trend, and Vandal knows because that’s exactly the way he thinks too. The rosary and the coffin nails that hang around his neck are a novelty; the gloves an oddity. They’re newer than the rest of the look. They’re out of place and out of his league.

Vandal eh-heh-hehs his way to a hello and finally stumbles out with a thousand apologies, things have been a little fraught here tonight, and if he’s any kind of an expert he’s guessing this guy’s here to receive rather than to give, is he right?

The Kindred doesn’t seem to listen. He rests a gloved hand on the glass between him and Vandal, drums his fingers — he’s got rhythm, and Vandal wonders if he recognises the beat.

“You know Nadia Milliner,” he says finally. Softly. There’s the burn of old cigarettes in that voice, and an effort to hide something; the accent he’s wearing’s not his own. And it’s not a question. Neither is what he says next. “And you know Rachel Amber.”

“And you oughtta know this window’s bulletproof.”

“Does that matter? Maybe I could bring this whole wall down on you. Maybe rip through every door in the place and beat you to death with what’s left.”

“I think, if you could do that, you wouldn’t be standing here _threatening_ me. You’d be _doing_ it. Which means either you can’t, or you’re afraid of what she’ll do to you if you lay a hand on me.”

“Maybe.” The Kindred takes off his shades, then, a very human, very tired sort of gesture, and rests his forehead and the bridge of his nose against the glass. One of his eyes still looks mortal — sweet and tired and dark. One looks dead. A shade away from white, all the way through; spoiled milk and winter fog congealed into a globe and slotted into his head. There are scars all around, and Vandal knows scars. This boy's been cut and cut again, the socket opened up so something could be taken out. And if it’s healed like this, he was alive when they did it. “But here’s a thing. You know what I can do? I can see dead people. And God, this little room of yours is full of them. I can see all your ghosts… all the Kens and Barbies you’ve dragged down here and… bled out, that’s what they’re telling me. It wouldn’t take very much at all to let them do what they want to you. To let all your sins come back to haunt you. And even _I_ could do that.” His lips peel back into a toothy smile.

“What.” Vandal swallows. Keeps his shaking hands below the counter. And yes, they’re shaking, because the shadows already seem a little longer, the dank air a little cooler, and every hum or click from this building’s decomposed machinery sounds like the door coming off the latch and here they come, filing in to take their turns — or maybe they’re already here, and they’re locking him in with them. Now he knows what he’s dealing with, if not exactly who, and this is a long way out of his pay grade. “What can I do for you, Mister Giovanni?”

“Tell me about Rachel.”

* * *

At least Chloe didn’t have to walk into her actual place of work and meet a walking pile of nope. Thank God for small mercies, every cloud has a silver lining, hang on to what you can and all that shit. Because everything else about this meetup is freaking her the hell out.

The lot they’ve pulled into is home to a beat-up metal tower thing Damsel says is a gas holder, and it’s not like Chloe can argue. It doesn’t smell much like gas any more, though. What it mostly smells of is decay; rust and mould and stale meat, getting thicker and dustier and heavier in Chloe’s nose and mouth as she follows Damsel in through the hole in the side. And it’d be great to explore. In broad daylight. When there wasn’t a vampire inside. When she didn’t know there was a vampire inside.

_What the fuck has happened to my life that THAT is something I ever have to think?_

There’s something like a floor in there. Concrete. Standing water. Something that goes crunch when Chloe steps on it, and doesn’t go crack when she scuffs it aside. There’s no light that isn’t following them in, and no matter how hard Chloe strains her eyes, she can’t see a yard in front of her face.

And then there’s a voice. It sounds like every no-this-is-gonna-kill-me cold she’s ever had; like something that grows on the wall has crawled off and learned not just English, but weapons-grade smug.

“So. What brings Baron LA’s best girl to my door?”

“He isn’t a Baron, Tung.” Damsel sniffs, and the look on her face says she’s already realised why that’s a mistake.

“Sure.” The unseen speaker gives a hollow, phlegmy laugh; something turning over in a swamp, bubbling out “He also isn’t here, so you’ve got nobody to impress by defending what’s left of his honour. Spill.”

“He said you knew what was gonna happen to Isaac. And you tried to warn him.”

“Not exactly. I knew something was coming. I’d been asked to cover for it. I could figure out the target and the tactics, but not the motive. I’m still working on that. One thing I know is it ain’t Regency. Which doesn’t rule out it being Camarilla…”

“Shit. Shit! You think they’re trying for another push?”

“Did I say that? No. Chill. I know you little witches like to move fast and break things, but someone’s relying on you doing that. You’ve gotta play smarter.” Tung shifts in the dark, a slimy rustle betraying his movements. There’s a glimpse of him — squat, flabby, hands wrapped in gloves that have a faint shine Chloe’s praying is rubber. “If it’s Camarilla at all. There are other possibilities. It’s not Sabbat, because it’s way too undercover and it’s out of the blue. It’s not hunters, because they wouldn’t bring us in to cover for it. But I’ve been thinking. Who profits from Isaac being out of the picture, from the Cam having an excuse to clamp down on Hollywood, and you guys going hog wild? I’ve got two names and I don’t like either of ‘em.”

“Funny. I’ve got two names too.” Damsel stretches. “Wonder if they’re the same ones. Count of three?”

“The direct approach. I like it.” Tung sniggers. A cockroach shell cracks. “Count of three.”

Like Chloe’s expecting, they both start with Therese Voerman. It’s the second name that makes her jump. As Damsel’s saying “Mira Giovanni,” Tung says “One of us”, and Damsel doesn’t make it to the end of her name.

“Are you shitting me?” she says, instead.

“I wish I was. But it was one of my own who told me the Voermans are in line to profit here, and who had me set up the cover for what happened to Abrams. What I can’t figure out is what Therese wanted with Baron Hollywood in the first — ”

“Rachel.” The word chokes on Chloe’s lips; she puts out a hand, grabs Damsel’s shoulder, forces it out again. “It’s gotta be, right? Therese took her up to Hollywood to meet your guy, Isaac. I thought she wanted Rachel for herself, but — ”

“Rachel. Eh-heh-heeh… which means you must be Chloe.” Tung laughs again, longer and harder, and then he steps into the light. His suit bulges in fourteen places it shouldn’t, and there are lumps moving under the skin in his face. He’s got a mouthful of little sharp piranha teeth and deep sunken yellow eyes, and all of that’s somehow not as bad as the fact that he’s laughing. “And I thought Damsel bought me takeout.”

Chloe takes a step back. Breathes. Regrets it. Breathes again. It’s hard for her not to barf just looking at the guy, and her throat’s crushing in for all sorts of reasons besides that. Damsel, God bless her, balls up her fists and steps between them.

“You’d better tell me — ”

“You’d better not even think you can threaten me, cupcake.” The crooked fingers snap, and Chloe’s not convinced Tung actually clicked them. “But it’s your lucky night, ‘cause I’ve got no reason to keep this secret. I happen to know you’re wrong. This Rachel, whoever-she-is? She’s Therese’s childe-to-be.”

“Child? That… that mean what I think it means?”

“It does. And I’m starting to see how all this fits together. Forget about the Giovanni. They’re a wild card. We tried to play ‘em before — didn’t work out. For my money, what you’re seeing here is Therese trying to push her Camarilla buddies a little.”

Damsel bares her teeth, and somewhere in between grin and grimace she sounds pleased, her pace picking up and her tone settling down. “You think she’s got something on Gary, don’t you? Something that makes it worth his while to take Isaac out and start acting like the cape he’s always been, deep down.”

“You catch up quick for someone who catches on so slow.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Us?” Tung’s gnarly hand rises to his throat, scritching and scratching among the folds and nodules there. “Well. Last time Gorgeous Gary Golden pushed his luck, my streets bled for it. So here’s my question. What have you got that’s better than a bloodbath?”


	3. he sees a red town and wants to paint it black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which negotiations come to an end, and a chance encounter puts a new piece on the board.
> 
> (This chapter has been edited after a change of direction later in the work.)

It’s not like Chloe’s been doing this for long, but one thing she’s already learned is that vampire diplomacy gives her a cluster headache, and that Damsel’s going to be making push come to shove for a while before she even thinks to ask about Rachel and she sure as hell won’t welcome the interruption. 

So here’s Chloe Price, Esquire, standing outside her own investigation and her own life, and she’s thinking about going back to the shitbox and seeing if the cops are gone and she has any stuff left, but feeling this weird gut-level tug, like someone’s sunk a weight in her and knotted the other end to Damsel and if she’s too far away she wants to throw up. At least she can smoke out here, where the air’s thinner and doesn’t have that stale-gasoline smell that says _this is a very bad idea_ (and whispers, right after, _unless you want to die and take these two mother bitches out with you_). She lights up on the second go and as she looks up from that first spark at the back end of the Surfside across the street, she realises she’s being stared at.

Not a passing whoa-she’s-hot either. A stare she can feel across the street, from a guy she can see across the street. He’s standing under a streetlight and he’s watching her, now watching her watching him. And if you’d asked her a week ago what a vampire looked like, this would be the vampire she’d describe. Dark hair, widows-peaking back across his head; so pale she knows she could see his veins; long coat with a high collar that looks pure costume drama. Opting for the little black Satan-beard accessory, too. His eyes fix on hers, and she takes another pull on her cigarette, posing right back. Self-conscious. If she breaks eye contact she’ll look down, see herself in a puddle, shit herself laughing, and he’ll have won.

He raises a hand slowly, like he’s going to wave. Cocks his head, like he’s giving her a point. Snaps his fingers, and the streetlight snaps out with a crackle, fused and dead.

“Cheater,” says Chloe, out loud. She flicks her cigarette through the wire gate, and goes back inside.

* * *

It’s two in the goddamn morning, and Nadia’s rubbing her eyes and listening to the Deb of Night’s late late show and wondering, as she’s wondered on and off for years, if night’s dark mistress is one of theirs, and if so — whose? Some of the calls she takes, some of the conspiracies she skewers, are just a little bit too close to what Nadia recognises as the truth.

It’s two. In the goddamn morning. And thinking about that flavour of Kindred crap is taking Nadia’s mind off her own. She can't sleep. She's _won_. 

It’s two in the morning, and someone’s knocking on her door. Nadia swallows, sways, knows who it is before she answers, and sure enough, all the nightmares she’s avoiding have come true together and Mira’s in her doorway, swaying.

She’s drunk, Nadia realises; she’s filled someone up with some of the good stuff from downstairs and filled herself up with them and that means, best case scenario, someone’s going to wake up with the worst of all possible hangovers and far more likely there’s a body she’ll have to damn well clear away and — 

Mira’s talking.

“Do you think I didn’t figure it out, Nadia? Why cousin Sanny suddenly grew a spine and stood up for me of all people, after all these years? I look around and there you are, making your little power move behind the throne.”

Nadia doesn’t say a word, because she never says a word. Don’t talk back. Take your hits. Eat the loss. One day this will all be over. Easier said than done.

“Say something. God, just talk _back_ to me for once. You’re so spineless. I don’t even — “

“I got it from you.”

Her eyes flick up from the floor. She can taste Santino on her lips, feel him inside her still, and it’s newer and fresher than the old ball and chain, the old familiar decanted shot of poison from Mira, and maybe that certainty that someone’s in her corner, that someone wants her and wants her to get through this, is the final push it needs. So Nadia stands her ground, all of a sudden; stops halfway across her bedroom floor and folds her arms and does exactly what she's told.

“One touch on the back of a man’s hand and you turned this city upside down. You do it all the time. All these years I’ve been watching you play the game and I thought it was about damn time I made a move before you got us both killed. And while we’re having a heart to heart, Mira, I’ve never been in love with you. I hate you. I hate that the Blood makes me give a flying crap about you. I hate that you’ve had the wrong idea about me for so very very long because of _one_ mistake I made _nine_ years ago and the only person I hate more than you is Maria so-called Rossellini for getting me into this mess in the first place!”

And then she remembers how to breathe. How to bite her tongue. How to not shit talk the vampires, because they can hurt you without caring about it and kill you without thinking about it. How to stay alive.

And Mira laughs. There’s a horrible silent moment where her face turns cold and hard, her eyes deep and dark, like something cracking in the roots of the Arctic itself, and then she laughs.

“You enjoyed that. That’s your fucking fantasy, am I right? You’ve been hanging on to that one waiting for the day you get away from me and you think it’s today and you’ll finally tell me the truth about Nadia Milliner. Like I give a shit. I don’t care about you, Nadia. I don’t care if you hate me, want me dead, would skin me and nail me to the Hollywood sign and leave me for the sunrise. You and me are each other’s punishment, that’s all. You fucked up and I jumped the queue for the Kiss because I was going to die if I didn’t and you know who gave me a boost? _Maria Rossellini_. Now isn’t that ironic?”

Maria Rossellini. Strangely beautiful; angular, awkward, whiter than white, drifting through this ugly McPalazzo in her crimson velvet. Wry green eyes flashing over steel frames. She’d caught Nadia when she was vulnerable — still breathing, in other words — and desperate-to-impress Nadia had taken her downstairs, through a door she wasn’t supposed to know existed, to a room nobody outside the immediate _familia_ was ever meant to see.

_Want to know what they do down here?_

_I want to say… Nadia?_

And in one world she’d said no, she didn’t swing that way, that wasn’t her point, but in this world she’d looked into Maria’s eyes and melted in them, and that had been the end of her.

_Let’s do it right here. In the very spot where the dead have lain. It’d be… cathartic._

She hadn’t wakened up until the house woke up, until Bruno realised Maria Rossellini had robbed them blind and stolen away into the night. Not that she was really Maria Rossellini, who was thirty-eight years old and had a drinking problem and had probably never made it to the front door. Nadia didn’t even know the thief’s real name, and if Mira knew, she wasn’t telling.

If Mira knew. Mira was as fucked as she was. Her position was built on the same lie. Some boost she’d got from someone who wasn’t even _familia_ — so why tell Nadia now? Covering her tracks? Nothing left to lose? A back-handed way of asking Nadia for help?

All this in a handful of seconds, pouring through Nadia’s mind as the walls came tumbling down.

“I guess I really hate Maria Rossellini, then.”

“God, don’t we all. She made you my problem. And I never expected you to live this long — my stupid fucking blood should have killed you long ago. You must have had help, right?”

_Vandal_, Nadia thinks to herself, abruptly in the dark. Vandal who she hasn’t even had time to think about. Vandal who started this whole nightmare ball rolling, on her say-so; who she hasn’t even thought about since the wall fell off her world and a handsome boy with a cold dead eye finally looked her way. Some friend-with-benefits she is.

"Thought so," says Maria. Nowhere near sober enough to read Nadia's face. Twisting the knife out of habit. "Well. Get through the shitstorm that's coming, and you're off the hook. I've talked to Bruno. You're up for the Kiss. For real. _Congratulations_. Do better than I did."

Nadia doesn't say 'thank you'. You can't walk back from _I've always hated you _that fast. She says the only thing she can say; the only thing Mira wants to hear, and second-guessing what Mira wants is what's kept her alive for nearly a decade, so this one's easy.

"I will."

* * *

“I have a secret. Wanna know what it is? Too bad — so does everyone else in town. So let’s talk about something interesting. Who do _you_ want to know?”

Jeanette rolls her eyes, drops her jaw; two fingers together make a gun, and two fingertips to her temple say exactly how she’s feeling. She takes a breath, theatrically, before she answers, and try as she might she’s not quite herself.

“Well golly, Mister Golden, that leaves a lot of choices. Too many for a simple girl like me. How’s about we skip to the sadistic either/or, huh?”

The chuckle from the phone is unlovely to say the least, even in tinny reproduction. It’s a B-movie bad guy giggle, twirling its moustache as it ties you to the tracks of a trolley problem. Rachel knows this game. She’s played it enough times.

“Well now. You and your frigid sister both want to trade up. You wanna be Baron Santa Monica, _she_ wants to be in with the Regency in-crowd. I can make that happen.”

“Uh-huh. And Gary Gee always takes his fee, so what’s on the table tonight?”

“I’ve a statement to make; truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I know who killed Isaac Abrams. But I’m only going to make it once. I’ll talk to whoever gets their guys in a room first. I’ve already spoken to your sister. Clock’s ticking.”

Dial tone, and Jeanette drums her fingers on the desk, and in that moment she looks so like Therese it hurts. Sure, they’re identical twins, but — 

_Oh, God. Really?_

Rachel’s first to the cellphone on the desk. She doesn’t pick it up — just looks at the screen. She knows what there is to see, but this isn’t about what she knows; it’s about what they know she knows.

“Like hell he did,” she says.

“I know,” says Therese. It’s definitely Therese; Therese’s stance, Therese’s stare, even in Jeanette’s underwear which suddenly doesn’t seem quite so full and flaunted. “And now you know our secret, Rachel. We’re very fond of you — both of us — and in the circumstances we’ve decided to trust you. Don’t give us a reason to regret it.”

Rachel takes a breath. Another. Control. Hold it down. Whatever dumb question she’s about to ask, she knows it’s going to be the wrong one, at the wrong time. This is Therese. She’s secretive, she’s sentimental but likes you to believe she isn’t, she’s practical, and she’ll answer questions in her own sweet time, unless they’re practical questions. And that’s the right kind of question.

“OK. I have questions about you. Of course I do. But this is so not the time for them, because hella creepy phone call.” That wasn’t strictly professional, but a) they’ve slept together and b) Therese is a vampire and sharing a body with her twin sister and c) after b) Rachel doesn’t think she can do strictly professional any more. “Who the hell was that?”

“That was Gary. He — ugh. He’s despicable. He’s filthy.”

“And,” she says, and her face visibly changes, the curve of her mouth shifting, muscles relaxing, the tension in her brow fading a little, and even if they didn’t use the voice so differently Rachel would _know_ this was Jeanette, “he’s a has-been who thinks he owns LA because he used to be big in Hollywood before Technicolor was even a thing.”

“But he doesn’t own anything. He lives in the storm drains. Pathetic. Which is why he’s reduced to blackmail and mind games — “

“Which nobody plays like we do.”

“So,” they say together, and maybe Rachel’s imagining it but there’s almost an echo on the voice, “watch our moves.”

* * *

Obviously, the worst moment in Chloe’s life was the day her dad died. And the second worst was the last day she knew her only fucking friend was never coming back. But today is a good third entry, purely because she’s walked in on Bertram Tung going goo-goo over a goddamn phone call, and she will never be able to unhear that.

“If you’ll make it worth my while,” he’s gulping out as she walks in, and the look on Damsel’s voice says she’s had to sit through whole minutes of this. “Mm-mm. You know what I’m talking about. But don’t let me get distracted. I’ve got the go-between right here. I’ll see you after the fireworks.” And God have mercy on them all, he blows a suppurating kiss into the cheap old brick cellphone and it’s only a mercy he doesn’t no-_you_-hang-up.

“What the hell did I just have to hear?” says Damsel.

“I got lucky, and so did you. That was Jeanette and she wants to meet with you guys. Ballona railyard. Guess she doesn’t like Therese’s play any more than you do. And she let on something else; the other side’s convening.”

“What about Rachel?” It’s out of Chloe’s mouth before she can stop it, and when Damsel glares and Tung rolls his beady little eyes she folds her arms and fuck-you stands her ground. “Come on. I came down here for one reason. I’m helping you for one reason. If you don’t know, just say so, and I will fuck off and stop wasting your valuable political time.”

“We don’t know where your girl is, but we know where she’s gonna be. If you want to walk in there with that attitude, be my guest.”

“What this cryptic son of a bitch means is that Rachel’s gonna be where Therese takes her, and if Therese’s Cam buddies are getting together she’s gonna be there. It’s their whole population-control thing; gotta present the new kid to the old capes and get their permission to covet her ass. So we’ve gotta find out where they’re calling this meeting and that means I’ve gotta call Nines. Payphone. Hup-hup.”

“Payphone? Who the shit uses payphones?”

“People who don’t trust cellphones. Duh.”

Tung laughs them out of the tower. Moment successfully defused. “God, you people are primitive. I get you’re concerned about security, but you need someone like me on your team.”

“We gonna get that any time soon?”

“If Jeanette jumps, I jump. If you can keep your war out of Santa Monica, I stay jumped."

* * *

This is how the lines are drawn. Point to point, signal to noise; one call follows another across the sleeping city. Therese calls the Regent; the Regent calls his agent; his agent calls an unlisted number from a Hollywood payphone. Damsel calls Nines; Nines calls a bunch of numbers, and says he doesn’t argue, and then he crosses himself and does the job he swears he doesn’t do and calls Santino. And Santino nods, and he smiles to himself, and he takes out another phone that nobody but him knows he has, and he calls a number nobody knows exists, and he checks in.

Checks are made, and written: balances are set and struck. Arrangements are made. To a tired girl in a gloomy palazzo, or a hotel room looking down on the Bay, or an alley behind a club in the thin October air, it’s all listening. 

People talk: people you realise you barely know; people you’re tied to, by blood and hunger, by loyalty and by a secret shared. People in whose wake you dangle, and you wonder: how many have there been before? Who was the last person who stood behind them and waited to be noticed again? How long before the endless wheels of the machine still long enough that they’d notice _you_ and remember, or pretend, or claim to love you? Did the last poor fool feel like this?

And that’s a long night. But tomorrow, or the night after, things may be different. Especially now, with autumn settling into winter. It’s not long ‘til Halloween, and on Halloween, all the monsters will come out to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are FINALLY over the hump of these damn conversations that have taken me months to slog through writing. We FINALLY have the last-but-one major character introduced. And we are FINALLY ready to repaint this town.
> 
> This fic's four-acts seven-chapters one-scene-per-primary-pairing structure has basically broken down and it took me a while to realise why it wasn't moving or where it needed to go, but we're back now and the next chapter is already 90% written and ready. We have one last charge over the horizon and then we're into Act IV and the endgame!
> 
> If anyone's still reading, thank you for bearing with me.


	4. he says to me "i've waited seven years"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth comes out, in a manner of speaking. Everyone who's anyone in LA's nightlife has gathered together in communion and the question on all their lips is "who killed Isaac Abrams?"
> 
> The answer they reach may surprise you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Republished and revised. I, er, realised a few weeks after posting that I'd sent the wrong Giovanni to the shindig. I don't want to alarm anyone, but my outline broke down midway through Act II.
> 
> Also: if anyone's still reading this, *please* let me know. This fic is becoming increasingly hard to manage. I'll finish it for myself, but it's so much easier to keep momentum if someone other than me wants to talk about it. I hate to be needy, but it helps the Process, y'know?

_“And finally,” says the voice from the TV, “the body found in a burned-out vehicle in Runyon Canyon earlier this week is now confirmed to be that of retired movie producer Isaac Abrams. Abrams, whose last major success was 2002’s Negative Zero, is believed to — “_

Damsel clicks the radio off.

“If that bullshit’s on the air,” she says, “investigation’s done. Regency knows what’s going down.”

“So it’s go time?” says Chloe, and _finally_ is about the word she has in mind too. Days of sleeping in the back of a cab, or in the booths upstairs at the Last Round, because her hellhole apartment’s still a crime scene and she doesn’t want to go back in any case. Nights of trawling websites and newsprint fitting together What The Hell’s Going On Here while Damsel and Nines and Skelter and the rest of their crew trawl in and out, hog the payphones, shout and growl and grudgingly submit to each other.

She’s starting to get the idea. Nines isn’t in charge, but if it comes to a staredown, nine times out of ten he doesn’t blink, and the other vampire rolls their eyes and _whatevers_ and Nines gets his way. The tenth time, someone knows something he doesn’t, and he just says “OK, your funeral” and that’s it, like he’s being beaten with his own permission. But he is absolutely not in charge and he absolutely doesn’t give orders. He just says what should be done and waits for someone to decide they’re going to do it.

Damsel does give orders. Or rather, she barks at people and demands to know why they’re not doing this when they could do that, what the hell they’re thinking, don’t they know what’s going on here? Like she’s hurt, personally, by how no-good dumbo stupid people can be. And two minutes later she’s thumping them on the arm and calling them ‘righteous’, a word Chloe’s caught on her own lips more than once and knows perfectly well that means she has a crush — and then a tiny guilty flicker in the back of her head reminds her that she’s doing this for Rachel, that she’s hanging on and following the thread of all this vampire noise because somewhere on the end of this there’s going to be some kind of showdown and apparently Rachel’s going to be there.

The word _apparently_ is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but _apparently_ that’s how the other side does things. If they want to make a baby vampire they need permission from the big bad in-charge kind of vampire, which sounds like total crap. And that’s had Chloe asking other questions.

Questions like “so how do you guys do it?” and “so why don’t you just… kill the big guy?”

The answers have got her thinking. Because the first answer was “we just do it, and we show ‘em how to look after themselves, and then they’re one of us if they wanna be,” and the second was… complicated, and it started an argument, and the person who made the most sense in it all was Skelter who’d said something like “’cause there’s always some other guy who wants to be the big guy, and you’ve gotta make sure you whack all of ‘em first, and that needs backup and it means you’re gonna take casualties. You cool with that? Didn’t think so.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she’d said. “War is hell.”

“It is,” he’d said. “I oughtta know.”

That had been the first night’s fight. The second night’s had been over the visitors. A pale, skinny girl in a trenchcoat and side-shave that said _trying too hard_ had come by and Damsel had jumped out of her seat and damn near taken her head off before Nines held her back and led their visitor outside for one hell of a tense conversation.

Chloe knew, because a) he’d pounded a dent into the wall when he came back in and b) she and Damsel had been watching through the upstairs window.

“All cops are bastards,” Damsel had said, “and that two-faced backstabbing ho is — “

“Our bastard,” Nines had said. “And we’re gonna need her when the time comes.”

“All this favour-trading shit is so fuckin’ Cam,” Damsel had said, “and so’s she.”

“If you don’t think you owe someone for saving your life,” Skelter had said, “why’re you still here?”

And that would have been that, except the _second_ visitor had been a little guy in the kind of beat-up leather jacket that’s worth more when it’s beat-up than it was new. He’d worn sunglasses indoors and a coffin nail round his neck, and he’d been fluent in bandspeak — that kind of stop-start _uh, well_ vagueness that leads to a good point or self-promotion. He’d reminded Chloe vaguely of Skip.

Damsel had not been pleased to see him. Neither had Skelter, and Chloe had fucking jumped to see Skelter’s face shift and distort when he was pissed off, nose and jaws all realigning into something more bat than human.

They’d taken him upstairs, and a better or less bored person than Chloe might have walked away, but she’d hung around at the bottom and, in the guise of feeding her last few bucks into the slot machine, she’d listened in. And the weird thing was, since he’d stepped out of the stairwell, their visitor had turned a lot more articulate.

_“Here’s what I’m offering: everything. Money. Guns. Intel. Whatever it takes to break the Regency and set us all free. There’s no beef between your people and mine, no five hundred year old rule says we can’t help each other out. That’s the shot. Here’s the chaser: I know who has Isaac Abrams’ blood on their hands.”_

_“What’s your price?” says Nines._

_“Venice Beach? Our barony. You may not set much by titles but my familia does. This has got to pay off in their eyes or I’m a dead man. And there’s a ghoul in the picture. I want her.”_

_“This is a whole heap of crap,” says Skelter. “You ask me, he’s using you for some Mafia-fam vendetta.”_

_“I absolutely am. But I don’t have to lie to you to do it. This is a situation of mutual benefit. Should be right up your street.”_

_“Lay it out,” says Nines._

_“Mira Giovanni pulled the trigger. Bruno Giovanni called the shot.”_

And now, Chloe asks if it’s go time, and Damsel says:

“It fucking is.”

* * *

The showdown’s in a place called Confession. “Why Confession?” ghouls ask their masters and childer ask their sires, and the vampires who know the score roll their eyes and explain that Venus Dare owns Confession, and Jennifer, the seneschal, _that girl_, owns Venus Dare, and Regent Strauss, Prince of Los Angeles in all but name, owns Jennifer. There’s no such thing as neutral ground.

Besides, if you’re going to drag most every vampire in LA into one space, you’d want it to be somewhere like this. Confession was a church before it was a club, and inside it’s all old-world vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, looming statuary at a safe distance off the ground. The DJ does their duty from the pulpit, the pews were plushed up and double up as benches along the walls, and even the bar is carefully fake-aged dark wood locked around panels from the old confessional. Up above, the fiction breaks down a little; the metal walkways on their cables and the cages, empty of dancers for tonight, are not exactly authentic even to the untrained eye.

The club’s closed to its ordinary visitors. There’s music, but only the dead would dance to it; elegiac world-music, a soft background whisper, words on the edge of hearing, swallowed up by the empty space overhead.

Nines and his crew arrive in a bloc: half a dozen anarchs, Chloe trailing them because this isn’t her fight but the other side sure as fuck has her girl. They take up space on the benches. They spread. Skelter doesn’t sit down; he leans back against a buttress and watches, like he’s standing in the doorway at the Last Round, like he hasn’t even left.

Some of the others are already here. Three stand where the chancel used to be. VV, tall and regal and veiled, in transparent mourning. Jennifer, trim in green velvet, with a little black book and a little black gun near to hand. And between them, the Regent himself, wreathed in a long red coat that hangs an inch or two above the floor, his eyes unreadable through the glare of the light on his little round glasses. But presumably, like everyone else, he watches.

There’s a darker patch in the transept. People are definitely in there, squatting or sitting or standing in the shade. There’s a thin, unpleasant smell, and nobody wants to stand too close.

Mira Giovanni is all alone. She sits at the bar with an empty glass in her hand; something to do with it, one assumes. She’s wrapped up warm in a long coat and scarf; even this dark and hollow chamber of LA’s unbeating heart isn’t exactly chilly, and if only she was living you’d be thinking:_ isn’t she boiling in there?_

The rest come in ones and twos and threes. A staggeringly tall, wiry young man whose suit looks like it cost more than the club adjusts his glasses and hovers by the Regent’s group, as does a shy young man with a mop of dark hair, shiny shoes and a crisp neat new waistcoat. A brace of scruffy kids in frayed jeans and old flannels follow a blonde in a deep red dress, and whisper into her ear as they look around. There’s a man in a white suit and round glasses; he walks with a stick and smiles like a python and the woman behind him stares coldly down her nose and toys with her surfeit of hair.

And then, without ado or ceremony or even a warning, the Voerman sisters walk in.

Or rather, they don’t. But it takes a moment for most of the eyes in the room to register that. The figure by Jeanette’s side is a little too short, and a visible decade younger; the hair is too dark, and the severe trademark glasses absent without leave. And yet, to an eye that was expecting Therese, just for a moment, she could have passed. The stance is there; the expression is there; the poise, laced with irritation at her surroundings is there. It’s as if Therese Voerman is looking out through Rachel Amber’s eyes, and then she meets the one pair of eyes that were expecting _her_ and falters.

Neither of them breathe. Chloe’s face falls. Rachel’s trembles. And then, abruptly, the Regent speaks.

“Thank you all for your attendance. You know I dislike theatricality of this nature; I consider these public gatherings a danger. I consider the prospect of another blood hunt in Los Angeles to be worse — and let us be clear that if another Kindred were implicated in the death of Isaac Abrams, a blood hunt would be called.”

Eyes fly to Nines and his cohort. Baron LA, as was, doesn’t say a damn word. He doesn’t even look angry, or composed. He’s just — there. And though nobody seems to say it aloud, the room wonders; _what’s with him?_

“Despite our political differences, it is Regency policy — Camarilla policy — that every Kindred in this city is protected by the Traditions, whether they ascribe to them or not. And now that every implicated party has its representative in this room, we can proceed to enact those Traditions.”

_It’s bait._ Surely someone must be thinking it. And Nines just smiles, faintly. His hands are in his lap.

“You all know my seneschal. You all know that it was by her efforts that our previous conflict was controlled, disaster averted, the guilty party uncovered, and peace restored. I would hope you all trust her, or at least value her discretion.” The Regent’s shimmering gaze falls on Bruno; his eyes narrow a little further, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Jennifer: your report.”

“I’ll keep this short, and forgive me if I lead with the evidence. I’ve searched Isaac’s office and spoken with one of his ghouls; I’ve also received information that confirms what I found there was valid.” Theatrical pause. At least one of the Regent’s people enjoys working a room. Then: “Isaac Abrams committed suicide.”

Gasps. Growls. VV throws her hands up to her face, and even Jeanette looks shocked, stepping back like she’s just been slapped. The beauty with the scraps in her train frowns, as if this wasn’t in the script. And Nines unfurls like the wrath of ages, winding up and stepping forward and laying it down: “Like hell he did. Who told you that?”

“Me, boss.”

The voice comes out of the dark transept, and it’s followed by footsteps, by shiny shoes and sharp pinstripe strides and a dress shirt with a collar you could shave with. A pity that the creature inside smells like he’s been dead for a week and looks like — _well, there’s no point in evading,_ thinks anyone who sees him for the first time. The eminence grise of LA’s Nosferatu looks… like Nosferatu. Pinched cheeks, ratty teeth, no hair on his skull, pointed ears that stick out four inches from his head. And not only that; he sounds like he’s enjoying it. The voice is clipped and cracked, Halloween-cheesy, every R rolled, the pause before the "boss" timed just right to exasperate.

From the anarchs’ quarter there’s a good deal of bristling and bitching; Damsel balls her fists and Skelter lays a hand on her arm, but his other isn’t exactly resting either.

“And before you say a word, Rodriguez, consider this. I knew Isaac Abrams when he and I were both still breathing, and underneath that godawful Toreador sneer and that pretence of Free State politics was a man I used to respect. He’s the one who spat on my boots when blood turned out thicker than champagne: I never had a damn thing against him until then. And imagine my surprise when, after all these years of ‘damn-dirty-sewer-rat’,” and Gary’s guttural sneer becomes a distorted echo of Isaac’s old-school Hollywood, just for four words and a beat, “he came to me with his last request.”

“You spend so long in shit, no surprise you’re full of it,” says Nines, and he’s not smiling any more. He steps forward, boots thudding softly on the dancefloor, takes his place two arms’ reach from Gary like he knows getting closer will mean throwing hands.

Eyes around the room are wandering. VV has her beautiful head in her hands, still; weeping, folding up, practically fainting against the pulpit. The anarchs are edging closer; Regent Strauss looks to VV and back to them. Hands across the room curl into claws, reach for the sidearms everyone knows they’re not supposed to have and everyone has. And those hearts that are still beating skip a beat, because it doesn’t take experience to know this room is a breath away from violence.

“Isaac Abrams was a sick man. He was sick of you, Rodriguez, hounding him for blood and money; sick of you, Regent, for not giving him the kind of fight he needed; and he was sick of the grave-robbers most of all.” _Click-clack, click-clack._ Gary’s shoes snap and shimmy as he paces the floor, a twisted hand cracking its talons at Mira, who stares at him like he’s something stuck to her shoe. “Most of all he was sick of being reminded every night that the LA he knew and the childe he made were long gone, and it was all downhill from here. That’s what he said to me, and he asked me to get him a car and leave it facing the sunrise and deliver his last bequests to the fools who didn’t deserve ‘em.”

“Bequests which, I might add,” says Jennifer, stepping forward almost but not quite to the edge of the chancel, “he also left on his desk for me to find, and there’s an instruction for —“

Nines cuts her off, stepping up to Gary, almost face to face now. “And did he tell you why all this was preying on his mind, Golden? ‘Cause I — God, let me enjoy this — I know something you don’t know. I know someone whose name isn’t on your goddamn list, and I know why it should be.”

“Think about what you’re doing, Rodriguez,” the Regent cautions, a long hand held up, and “Nines, who’ve you been listening to?” asks Jeanette, her feet on the edge of the floor, and around the edges of the vampires’ attention Chloe is sneaking closer to Rachel, long face and wide eyes, begging for her attention, _just fucking see me and let’s run before this goes wild._

VV lifts her head and stares straight at him. “Say it, Nines. For him.”

“Nines,” says Jennifer, “for Christ’s sake, let this go, do you really want to go to war — “

“Shut up. All of you. You know who I want to hear from? I want to hear from the girl who says nothing. The girl who’s sitting here watching us and waiting to see who draws first. What do you think, Miss Giovanni? You know anything about how to drive a good man to his death?”

“No,” says Mira, in a whisper, and before her feet have touched the ground the whispers are going around the room and building. VV and Jennifer and Jeanette and even Regent Strauss all have their eyes on the Giovanni emissary and the word’s on all their lips: liar. Her eyes aren’t even on Nines — she’s staring up at the Regent, pleading. “My family keep to ourselves. We made a Promise, which _you_ broke first — “

“You’re in the Free State, dammit!” Nines shoves Golden aside, storms across the floor; the Nosferatu hisses, drops back, slinks out of the spotlight. “I don’t give two shits what you promised the Camarilla. This is not their town!”

“Rodriguez — ” says the Regent, but it’s too late; Nines has reached Mira Giovanni on his stool and his hand’s blurred, moving faster than the eye can see. Mira’s head spins, her jaw cracks; she stumbles back against the bar and looks back at him, teeth bare, knuckles whiter than white. Her eyes flicker to the Regency and back. Nothing. No protection. Finally, she looks Nines in the face.

“Show me the evidence,” says Nines, not looking away. “Show me these fucking letters. Right now I’m hearing a Cam footsoldier and a Cam sellout throwing me a Cam story and I’m not seeing how it proves me wrong.”

Jennifer throws her little black book on the dancefloor; it skids past Nines and settles by Jeanette’s feet. “Tucked in. Back page.”

Only a very few people in Confession tonight are breathing; the bartender’s ducked and covered. Jeanette can’t seem to move in those boots, in that skirt, so Rachel scoops up the book and hands it to her, and now she’s in their frame of vision and Chloe’s hovering, fighting the urge to back away.

“Let’s see now,” Jeanette purrs; in her hands, a sheet of fine paper unfolds, the little book falling to the floor. “The final words of Isaac Abrams… the Free State hasn’t failed, but he has… he’s sorry, so sorry to Ash and VV, sorry he couldn’t save them… And… oh. _Oh_. Oh, Therese, Therese, you’re gonna hate him for this.”

“What’s he done?” says someone, maybe sometwo; doesn’t matter. Jeanette folds the letter into four, hands it to Rachel with a flourish, and smiles, sweet as nightshade.

“As _Baron_ Voerman, I accept Isaac Abrams’ last bequest. What a guy he was! And you know it too, VV baby, so I just know you’ll come round in time. You'll have to; we'll be neighbours!”

Gary Golden looks from Jeanette to the chancel and back again, at Nines and at Bruno. “Why, you double-crossing two-faced little — ”

“One for you, I guess, your Regency,” says Nines.

“But you can’t count on Lil’ Miss Promises here,” says Jeanette, “even though she’s dead meat if this is our town again. Because she can’t get involved in your business. Unless she can, in which case… who’s to say she’s not already been?”

“Is this how it ends, Rodriguez?” Regent Strauss’ voice is low and cold and audibly strained; it’s soft, but the velvet’s sliding off and there may just be steel underneath. “Nine years of peace, almost to the day, and it ends because Isaac Abrams wills it so? From beyond the grave?”

“I’m going to make you an offer, _Strauss_. Step down. Plant your feet on the same floor as the rest of us. Call yourself Baron LA if you want; hell knows I don’t want it. But stop pretending the rules mean you say what happened and we all have to live with it. I’ve testimony that the Giovanni are behind the death of my old friend and ally Isaac Abrams, and I intend to act on that testimony. If you want to stop me do it man to man, without the Traditions and the Blood Hunt and the ‘it’ll be the end for all of us’ crap.”

“It will. And because it will… you know I cannot. The Traditions work — “

“LA worked fine without them.”

“The world is bigger than Los Angeles!” The snap in Strauss’ voice is audible; it’s the first time many of them have ever heard him shout, and there’s no Blood-born power behind it. He’s just a man, at the end of his patience, and he masters himself again at once. “This is not the world you or I were Embraced into, Rodriguez. This is a world with a camera in every pocket, with phosphorous and uranium and God-knows-what in any bullet. Our enemies are organised and they are everywhere and they have already struck. London, Vienna… I will not have Los Angeles be next. The lassitude of the past will not save us now. We need stability. We need security. Above all, we need secrecy. And — “

“And none of that needs the Camarilla. So. You gonna bring me your boss, Mira, or do I have to come up to Hollywood and _get_ him?”

Mira is frozen, unyielding, unmoving, all save her eyes; they dance from Baron to Regent and back. To those with the eyes to see it, she radiates terror, crackles with fury, stands paralysed between rip and tear and run for her life; those without merely have to guess. She’s walked in here, token presence for the devil Kindred, and now she’s realised she doesn’t get to walk out. And nobody else knows that she came here thinking, in her heart of hearts, that it was all about her.

Nines snorts. The anarch crew files out; Damsel throws a middle finger over her shoulder as she passes. Chloe, in their wake, reaches out to take Rachel’s hand at last, at long last.

Mira moves. The gun’s in her hand; too heavy for her, and she’ll break her damn hand firing it one-handed, but at this range and with nothing left to lose it won’t matter. VV cries a warning and as Nines turns back and sees the shaking barrel, there’s a shot. It rings out loud and echoes in the vaults above; it goes down into the soul of every Kindred in the room; and the handful of the still-living on the premises flinch, drop, buckle as the sound dies out.

Jennifer steps down from the chancel; she holds a pocket pistol in a professional’s grip, one hand bracing the other. Mira sways and howls, turns her own gun on Jennifer, and that’s the last mistake she ever makes, because she’s taken her eye off Nines and now there’s an arm locked around her throat.

“Guess this is less political if I finish it, kid?” She nods, and Nines hauls back hard. There’s a crack and a growl and something in Mira snaps as the rest of her falls to the floor, coming apart as she tumbles, seven years’ death catching up with her all at once. It starts to stink, in the still conditioned air. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Et tu, Jennifer?” says the Regent, quiet and sepulchral from his perch. He’s no fool; this is check, but not mate. Golden has declared for him; VV will, he thinks, choose safety over scruples. The Voermans were allies of convenience, and if Jeanette is against him, it’s a safe bet Therese will be for. A knight for two bishops and a queen; the trade is not to his disadvantage; and yet he’ll miss his hand upon the piece. He knows what Lacroix had her do, in the Hollywood Hills; what Mira’s threat, her appeal, were meant to accomplish; what Jennifer’s accomplished, for herself and for him, with a bullet and a nod to the man who’s free to do what he will. _Loyal to the end, my apprentice. But no more._

“I’m no longer acting as an official of the Camarilla, master. I saw her pull a gun on my friend; my friend who saved my life twice before I ever met you.” 

“Do you realise what you’re giving up, Jennifer? Your official position; your recognised domain; your suite in my chantry; your rank in the Pyramid; all forfeit. If you leave now, you leave as one of them.”

She looks up at Nines and sighs. “Better late than never? After all, I _did_ just save your life.”

Baron LA rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

Jeanette smiles, lays a hand on Jennifer’s back. “Your old place in Santa Monica’s not exactly good to go, but I’m sure we can find you a little chaise longue chez moi.”

And Chloe’s heart skips a beat as Rachel — at last — looks across at her and winks.

For someone, at least, everything is as it should be.


	5. you never see him out after dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Rachel are finally on the same side, but what does that even mean any more? Jennifer and Jeanette are catching up, and pillow talk (yet again) turns careless. And whatever is this that's happened to Vandal?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been slightly re-edited. New plot direction. Sometimes the right thing to do isn't apparent until, er, weeks after you publish.

They’re outside.

They’ve walked through the doors of Confession and they’ve made it outside and the air in downtown LA reeks but it’s never tasted quite so sweet to Chloe as it does right now.

“OK.” Rachel puts up her hands, takes a deep breath. “You were telling the truth. I freaked out. I wish you hadn’t grabbed me, _but_ I can see why you did, and… I’m sorry.”

“You scared the shit out of me. Especially after — no, fuck it, I’m not going there. I prolly didn’t handle it well. But you’re here, and we’re OK, and we’re talking, and…”

The kiss isn’t much. It’s not long, it’s not lingering, and it hangs just enough that Chloe forgets where that sentence was going.

“And we need to talk. In hella serious ways. Which is why I want you to come with me tonight.”

“Come — OK, yeah, back to the hotel? I can do that. I could _seriously_ use a good shower. Is, uh…”

“Therese won’t be there. She’s… off the grid. And yours — Damsel, right? Let me guess…”

Rachel cranes around Chloe, who’s never been quite so grateful for her height advantage.

“She’s gonna be on the warpath, and she already said it’s not safe for me where they’re going, and _anyway_ I’m only rolling with them to get _you_ back.”

“Sure. Sure you are. But since their guy just made his power move, we should get the fuck out of here. Before the Regent or that freak in the tux show up.”

“This is our life now, huh?”

“Like you said: you’re here, and we’re OK.” Rachel takes Chloe’s hand, leads her through the gate, and it’s almost normal again: this is why they left for Santa Monica in the first place, two kids in love and a weird-ass city club with a scene that turned ugly and now they’re taking a taxi back to a hotel room like reasonable people who don’t have a terrifying secret hanging between them. And it feels like that for a second. Just for a few minutes.

“We’re not OK,” says Chloe. She doesn’t snatch her hand back; if anything, she holds Rachel’s a little tighter, screwing up her knuckles and her face so she doesn’t have to cry. “I can’t do this. I can’t make this look like it’s just another night on the town. We just saw that girl get — I don’t even know, shot up and snapped in two and — “

“Chloe.” Rachel looks up and down the block; the anarch posse has almost turned the corner, and so have they, going the other way; a huge building she thinks is the public library looms over them on the right. “Just keep it together. I am also trying not to freak out. But it’s got to stay secret, right?”

“I can’t… I thought I’d get to you and everything would go back to normal. Like we’d just run. Run back to the goddamn Bay if we had to. But we’re in this now, and we’re going back to Therese’s hotel like it’s no thing and — it’s never gonna be back to normal, is it? ‘Cause we know now. We know the secret. And it’s part of us.”

Rachel turns. Chloe’s braced for the anger, for the scream, for the worst of all possible worlds, and it doesn’t come. All that happens is Rachel lets go of her hand and runs her fingers through her own hair.

“Give me a minute. I’m trying not to get angry, or blame you, or fuck this up any harder than I already have. Can you… hear me out on something?”

Chloe nods. If she opens her mouth, she’ll say no, or something that means the same thing. She’ll scream, because all her efforts are just about keeping that murder from the dance floor buried down inside her.

“Even back in Arcadia Bay, you know… someone tried to kill us the day after we met. We survived. We are survivors. And the whole… big damn secret? It’s crazy, but… I think we can use it. I think we can make this work. I think we can be a part of this world and I want you to want to come with me, OK? Because everything’s changing. We’re on the same side now and we can kick so much ass together and we can still be together. I admit it, I am crazy about Therese. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you, too.”

She’s right there in front of Chloe. Practically in her arms. It would be so easy just to reach out and hold her and have her on some terms, any terms, forever.

“This is a lot. Several lots. A whole lotta lots. Like — you don’t wanna be safe — and you want to play this situation, and you want…”

“What do you want? And don’t just say ‘you’ ‘cause you think I want to hear it.”

Rachel’s arms are around her. It’s a hug. A friend hug, Chloe realises, and her heart sinks but it doesn’t quite touch the bottom, because this is what she’s been crying out for since the first night they spent apart in Santa Monica what feels like an eternity ago.

_I thought you’d never ask._

“I… want you… to come home with me. Back to the shitbox. So I can at least get my stuff and not have to watch my own back the whole time. I guess I’ll come with you to the hotel. I want a shower, and it’s not like I’ve got anywhere safer to be. And long term I don’t fuckin’ know, Rache, and that’s the truth. I haven’t known what I want or how to want things for a long time. But you do, so…”

Chloe’s still rigid. Rachel turns her head a little, holds her tighter.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m gonna need my hands back to stop a cab,” says Chloe, through her tears.

“Nope.”

* * *

Two bodies, in the back of a car. Their arms are around each other, because why not — tonight was a big night for both of them, and tomorrow’s going to be a bastard one. Jennifer’s thrown off her jacket and tie, and Jeanette’s hands are teasing her through the silk of her shirt; their teeth are sharp, the night’s still young, but at least one heart isn’t in it. Jennifer pushes her glasses up and sighs.

“I really liked that club, you know.”

“Look on the bright side, kitten; you’ve got a lifetime free ticket to mine.” Jeanette laughs, and after a second Jennifer cracks a smile too.

“Thought I already did. You’ll have to get a VIP room.”

“I promise, when the war is over, I’ll build you a cute little wizard’s lab with all the straps and buckles you want…” Jeanette runs her fingers along the lines of Jennifer’s holster and giggles, reaching for the tac-knife, but the smile’s gone, and Jennifer’s staring into the middle distance again.

“Yeah. That reminds me. I should tell her myself, but… that girl you brought in tonight. I assume that’s Therese’s mini-me?”

“She’s special, ain’t she? Smart as a pin, and she brings Therese right out of her shell and onto the beach with the rest of the babes, and she tastes _great_.”

“She’s Awakened.” Jeanette looks up, and Jennifer looks down, deadly serious. “Cross my heart, Jeanette. She’s not human. ‘She’s a wizard, Harry,’ even if she doesn’t know it herself.”

Jennifer’s impression is awful, but the words hang in the air between them, all the same. Jeanette can see what Therese can see; they’re the same eyes, for all that she stains one a pretty colour. Rachel’s punk-rock gal-pal is pretty bright but Rachel’s a nebula in a girl’s skin, aglow in the dark. There is _something_ going on there, and now she knows what.

“Does it make a difference?” Jeanette asks. This is when she’s at her most dangerous, Jennifer knows — when the cryptic obscenities and the pretty promises have drained out and she’s talking like an ordinary person. This is Jeanette _thinking_, parting that Malkavian brain-fog and seeing things clearly.

“I don’t know. I’ve hardly ever seen them in the flesh, and never really to talk to. They don’t like us — Tremere, I mean — “

“_Nobody_ likes you guys, kitten. I make an exception for _you_ because you’re so sexy and you know all my secrets, but…”

“ — but to know for sure, I’d need to look it up. Or ask. And Max just evicted me.”

“And I just made it very clear whose brand of bulldada I’m not takin’ no more. Hmm. _Hmm_. If _only_ we had a third option.” Jeanette poses; one finger on her lips, eyes crossed, swaying her head to and fro, and Jennifer rolls her eyes.

“Tell her to be careful, OK? Max doesn’t like her anyway, and he’s not going to trust her after this little show.”

“It’s fine. Therese is good at kiss-and-make-up, remember? Even if I’m the better kisser.”

“That was cheap.”

“You’re unemployed now; take what you can get.”

Jennifer sighs, and takes off her glasses. _So the new __Baron Hollywood is going to be a pain in the ass_, she thinks — but then, it’s not her problem any more.

The dead guy in the front seat might be, but he can wait.

* * *

Vandal wakes up in the dark.

This, in itself, is not unusual. But there isn’t even a trace of light; not even the baleful glow of his bedside alarm clock; not a crack nor a flicker through the windows.

This is total darkness. Total and absolute.

Also, he’s sitting up.

Also, he can’t move his arms. Or legs. Because he’s strapped in to something. And this is when Vandal screams, because he’s woken up from this before and screamed, but this isn’t the nightmares he had in the first year or two, less and less as it all became same old same old, as Queen Bitch’s crazy seeped into every vessel it could and saturated him. This isn’t the nightmare he’s woken up from. This is real.

“He’s awake,” says someone.

“Good,” says someone else.

Vandal knows the first voice. It’s soft NorCal, a dead-inside Dead Kennedys drawl that’s already worked him over once this week. The second is richer, deeper; not a local boy at all. British, he thinks. Movie villain British. He grits his teeth, strains his arms and legs — nothing. They’ve done a him-quality job.

“What do you want? I’d be dead if you didn’t want something.”

“Information, Mister Cleaver.” It’s the second voice. The bad cop. The boss, he presumes. “So many so-called _Kindred_ walk by your little window. You must know everyone worth knowing in Los Angeles. I’m surprised they don’t take you more seriously.”

“They know who owns me. They know who not to mess with. Or she’ll cut them off. One way or the other.”

“Yes. Therese Voerman. Baron Santa Monica. Or is she primogen to the Prince Regent of Los Angeles, this week? Not that a loyal servant like you cares. She turns with the prevailing wind, and you turn with her. How long has it been, Mister Cleaver?”

“Ten years. No. Eleven.” Vandal’s eyes rove to and fro; no break in the oppressive gloom, nothing to locate the voices by, no sense of the world at all. Where is he? “I serve. I won’t be — “

“Save your breath. No man alive is without his price. You can be bought, or broken. And you have considered treachery. Everyone in your position does. The Blood breeds loyalty. It also breeds resentment.”

“How else do you explain Nadia?” The rat bastard Giovanni speaks, at last. Vandal bucks against the straps; not a cheap chair, no legs. Medical gear. That’s a hint. Not one he wants to hear. “You should be grateful. You’ve looked out for her. That’s why you’re still alive. That’s why,” and the voice is a little louder now — closer, perhaps — “I talked him into giving you a choice.”

“Betrayal. For my life. A life not worth living, without her in it.” Even as he says it, Vandal knows it’s not true. Not entirely. He’d conceived. He’d considered. He’d have broken her to his convenience if he could. The witch girl. She was the key to his undoing, to his salvation. And — 

“You already betrayed her," says the other guy. "You told my young acquaintance about Rachel Amber. You already gave away something that’s hers. Didn’t that hurt? The guilt? The shame? The Blood, crying out for you to make good? That can stop, Mister Cleaver. You can be free of it all.”

“Death threats? No. No, no. Vandal knows something you need to know. No theatrics. Wouldn’t you — you’re not going to kill me. After all this trouble?” It’s beginning to get to him. He’s lapsing back against the straps. He’s praying for the needle; for the end.

“You will die in this room, Mister Cleaver. I promise. You will leave this room a corpse. But you may leave this room of your own volition, if you wish.”

“Because I owe you one, Vandal.” The Giovanni again. Closer. “And because I feel sorry for you. No-one should have to live like you do. Therese has used you up and you’ll never get what you’re holding out for unless you take it. And that girl — Rachel. She’ll get everything you’ve ever wanted. Prolly has it already.”

“What… how will you do it? If you don’t break these chains. How do I die?”

“Ironically, Mister Cleaver. We’ll leave you here to die as so very very many have. Blood loss. Perhaps your stolen years will catch up with you, before the last of you is spent. Perhaps you won’t even recognise yourself when you die. You will…” and there’s an ironic little chuckle from the other guy, the fruity Brit who is loving every second of this, “never see a familiar face in the mirror again.”

“And if I say yes?”

“You’ll lead us to Therese Voerman, wherever she and her ghoul are hiding, and we’ll see you break your _own_ chains. And then, Mister Cleaver, with what we take from her devoured soul, we’ll take the city. A storm’s been building for seven years, and it is about to break. Will you ride it out, or be swept away?”


End file.
